She planted her fists firmly on her hips and leaned menacingly toward him. “Whoever filled you with that crap doesn’t know what they’re talking about. Yrsa’s living with me, and she’s got neither cats nor lodgers.” The word “MORON!” lit up in her black-painted eyes.
He held up his hands in front of him in capitulation.
The chair in his office beckoned.
“What’s all that about her twin sister, Assad? Has Rose threatened to send her over before?”
Assad bounced jauntily up the steps of the rotunda alongside him, but Carl could already feel the lead accumulating in his legs.
“Don’t take things so personal, Carl. Rose is like sand on a camel’s back. Sometimes it makes the arse itch and sometimes it doesn’t. It’s all a question of how thick-skinned a person is.” He turned his face to Carl and flashed two neat rows of pearly white enamel. If anyone’s arsehole had been armored with hard skin through the years, it was probably his.
“She has told me about her sister, Yrsa. I remember her name because it sounds like Irma, the supermarket. I don’t think they are very good friends together,” Assad added.
Yrsa? Is anyone really called that anymore? Carl wondered as they reached the third floor, his heart valves dancing the fandango.
“All right, boys?” said a delightfully familiar voice on the other side of the counter. Lis was back! Lis, forty years of eminently well-preserved flesh and brain cells. A true gift to the senses, in stark contrast to Ms. Sørensen, who smiled benevolently at Assad while rearing her head toward Carl like a cobra poked with a stick.
“Tell the detective inspector what a lovely time you and Frank had together in the States, Lis.” The heron smiled ominously.
“It’ll have to wait, I’m afraid,” Carl replied swiftly. “Marcus is waiting for us.”
He pulled in vain at Assad’s sleeve.
Thanks for fuck all, Assad, he thought to himself as Lis’s glowing red lips gleefully related the events of a whole month spent in America in the company of a wilted husband who had suddenly turned into a bison in the double bed of their rented motor home. These were images Carl tried with all his might to erase from his mind’s eye, along with thoughts of his own involuntary celibacy.
“Bloody old hag,” he muttered under his breath. Assad wasn’t much better, either. Not to mention the lucky bastard who had ensnared Lis. And then there was Médecins Sans Frontières or whatever they called themselves, who had enticed Mona, the focus of his desire, and dragged her away to darkest Africa.
“When does that psychologist of yours come home again, Carl?” Assad asked as they stood outside the door of the briefing room. “What was her name, now? Mona, is that right?”
Carl chose to ignore Assad’s cheeky smile and opened the door. Most of Department A were there already, rubbing their eyes. They had spent a couple of exhausting days on the outside, up to their ears in society’s quagmire, but now Assad’s discovery had hauled them back to the surface again.
It took Marcus Jacobsen ten minutes to brief his team, and both he and Lars Bjørn seemed more than a little excited. Assad’s name was mentioned several times. His beaming smile was met by the narrowed eyes of his colleagues, clearly puzzled as to how this monkey of a cleaning assistant had suddenly appeared in their midst.
But no one had the energy to ask questions. Essentially, Assad had discovered a highly plausible link between old and new cases of arson. All the bodies found in the remains of the blazes shared the same groove in the bone of the little finger of the left hand, apart from the one body on which that finger was missing. It transpired that the pathologists had made a note of it in each case, though no one had made the connection.
The autopsies indicated that two of the deceased had worn a ring on their little finger. The cause of the groove in the bone had not been the heat of the blaze, the pathologists stated. A more likely conclusion was that the deceased had worn these rings since youth and that they had thus left their indelible mark on the osseous tissue. Such rings could have had cultural significance along the lines of the binding of feet in China, one pathologist had suggested, whereas another noted that some ritual might have been involved.
Marcus Jacobsen nodded. Something like that. Some kind of brotherhood could not be ruled out, either. Once the ring was on, it was never removed.
The fact that one of the bodies was missing a digit was another matter altogether. There could be any number of reasons for this, including someone having chopped it off.
“All we have to do now is tie up the whys and wherefores,” the deputy chief, Lars Bjørn, concluded.
Almost everyone nodded, some with a sigh. What could be simpler?
“Department Q will notify us as to any similar cases they might turn up,” added the chief, and Assad received a pat on the back from one of the detectives who most definitely wouldn’t be doing any of the donkey work.
And then they were out in the corridor again.
“What was it now you were saying about this Mona Ibsen, Carl?” said Assad, continuing terrier-like from where he’d left off. “Would you not like her to come home again before the bollocks weigh as heavy as cannonballs?”
Back in the basement, everything was pretty much as it had been when they left. Rose had dragged a stool in front of the blowup on the wall, and now she sat pondering so intensely one could almost see her frown from behind.
It seemed she was stuck.
Carl looked at the giant photocopy. It was certainly no easy puzzle to solve. To put it mildly.
She had now gone over all the characters with a felt-tip pen. It might not have been the wisest thing to do, but it did provide a better overview, that much he could see.
She dragged her fingers coquettishly through the bird’s nest of her hair, her nails speckled with marker fluid as though to make everything match.
No doubt she would touch them up with black nail polish before long.
“Does it make any sense to you? Any sense at all?” she asked as Carl tried to read.
HELP
.he .. ..brary …. .. …. k…aped .. got .s .. the .us s.op on ..ut.op…. .. Bal…..—T.. man .. 18. t… …. ….. hair …. …. … ….—Hes got . …. .. hi. rit. … .r…. . bl.e .an Mum … … ..ow him—Fr..d.. .nd …t.in. wit. . B— .. ..retn.d .. .. …. .. ….…. ……—… ..ing to .il us— .. .ressd . … .. .. .ace ..rst …. .. .rother.—We drove …..y 1 hour … … .. … .y wa.t.r ….. … …. win. .urb..s ….. .. .. ….. ..re—….. .. … …. .. ……. .. …….—.. … . .. …. .. years
P… ….
A cry for help, as was obvious from the heading, and, besides that, reference to some man or other, a mother and driving. Signed with a “P,” and that was it. No, it made no sense at all.
What had happened? Where, when, and why?
“I’m pretty sure this is the person who wrote it,” said Rose, pointing her felt-tip at the “P” at the bottom. Who said she was thick?
“I’m also pretty sure that the person’s name consists of two words each of four letters,” she added, tapping Assad’s penciled dots.
Carl’s gaze slid from the felt-tip on her nails to the pencil marks on the photocopied message. Was it about time he had his eyes tested? How on earth could she be so certain there were two sets of four letters? Because Assad had put dots on some blotches? As far as he could see, there were umpteen possibilities.
“I’ve checked the original,” she went on. “And I’ve spoken to that expert in Scotland. We’re both in agreement. Two sets of four letters.”
Carl nodded. That expert in Scotland, she had said. Well, that was it sorted, wasn’t it? As far as he was concerned, she could consult a tartan-clad fortune-teller in Reykjavik, because his eyes were plainly telling him that most of what he saw was bollocks, no matter what Rose might have to say.
“It was definitely written by a male. I’m assuming no one in that situation would sign themselves using a nickname, and I’ve come up with no Danish
girl’s names of four letters beginning with ‘P.’ Looking at foreign names, I’ve found only the following that would fit: Paca, Pala, Papa, Pele, Peta, Piia, Pili, Pina, Ping, Piri, Posy, Pris, and Prue.”
She listed them in a heartbeat, not even glancing at her notes. Was she right in the head, this Rose girl?
“Papa. A very strange name for a girl,” Assad grunted.
Rose shrugged. It was something of a turnup, Carl had to admit. Were there really no Danish girl’s names of four letters beginning with a “P”? That was what she said, anyway. Impossible, surely?
Carl glanced at Assad, who looked like he had question marks drawn all over his face. No one could ponder in as spellbound a fashion as his stocky assistant.
“It is not a Muslim name, either,” he said from within his frown. “I can think only of Pari, which is Iranian.”
Carl grimaced. “And Iranians don’t live in Denmark, or what? Never mind, let’s just say this bloke’s called Poul or Paul; that makes things a lot easier, doesn’t it? We’ll have him found in a jiffy.”
At this point, Assad’s frown deepened. “Found in a what, did you say, Carl? Where is that?”
Carl sighed. Perhaps he ought to send his little helper over to see his ex soon. She could teach him idioms that would make his wide eyes roll in his head.
He glanced at his watch. “So his name’s Poul, is that what we’re saying? Well, I’m off on a break, then. Fifteen minutes, and when I get back, you’ve found him, OK?”
Rose did her best to ignore Carl’s tone of voice, though her nostrils flared visibly. “I’m sure Poul’s an excellent candidate. Or Piet, or Peer with two ‘e’s, Pehr with an ‘h,’ or Petr without an ‘e.’ Or it could be Pete, or Phil. The possibilities are endless, Carl. We’re multiethnic now, as well, so there’s all sorts of new names flying around. Paco, Pall, Page, Pasi, Pedr, Pepe, Pere, Pero, Peru…”
“All right, Rose, for Chrissake, that’ll do. Anyone would think this was a register office. And who’s Peru, anyway, when he’s at home? I thought that was a country, not a bloody name…”
“…and Peti, Ping, Pino, Pius…”
“Pius? Yeah, why not bring the popes in while we’re at it? They’re male, at least…”
“Pons, Pran, Ptah, Puck, Pyry.”
“Are you finished?”
There was no answer.
Carl considered once again the signature on the wall. Whatever else he might think, it was hard to conclude otherwise than that the letter had been written by someone whose name began with “P.” So who was this “P”? Piet Hein was hardly a candidate. Who, then?
“The first name may be a compound, Rose. Are you sure there’s no hyphen in there?” He gestured toward the blur. “In which case it could be Poul-Erik, or Paco-Peti, or Pili-Ping.” He tried to transfer his smile to Rose’s face, but she was far away and impervious. Sod it, then.
“All right, should we let this magnified message look after itself for the moment, so we can get on with more important matters and Rose can get her poor nails painted black again?” Carl suggested. “We can hardly avoid coming back to it every now and then. Maybe some bright ideas will emerge. Like when you leave the crossword lying around in the bathroom for the next time you need to go.”
Rose and Assad studied him with wrinkled brows. Crosswords on the toilet? Obviously neither of them spent as much time in there as he did.
“No, hang on a minute. I don’t think we can leave it stuck to that wall. We need to get through the door. Part of our archive’s behind it, in case you’d forgotten. All those old, unsolved cases. You’ve heard of them, I suppose?” He turned on his heels and headed for his office and the comfy chair that awaited him. Rose’s ice pick of a voice halted him in his tracks after only two steps.
“You look at me, Carl.”
He turned with caution and saw her pointing back toward her work of art.
“If you think my nails look like crap, I don’t care. Get it? And besides that, do you see that word up there at the very top?”
“Yes, Rose, I do. In fact it’s about the only thing I can say with any certainty that I do see. It very plainly says ‘HELP.’”
With that, she waggled a blackened finger menacingly in his direction. “Good. Because that’s the word you’ll be wanting to scream if you remove so much as a single sheet of that paper. Do you get my drift?”
He released his eyes from her rebellious gaze and waved Assad to his side.
He would have to put his foot down before long.
7
Whenever she looked in the mirror, she always thought she deserved better from life. Nicknames such as Peach and Thyregod School’s Sleeping Beauty were still part of the way she saw herself. When she took off her clothes, she could still be pleasantly surprised by her body. But what good was that if she was alone?
The distance between them had become too great. He never saw her anymore.
When he came home, she would say he wasn’t to leave her again and that surely there had to be other job opportunities. She wanted to be close to him, to know about his work and to watch him wake up beside her in the mornings.
That’s what she was going to say.
In former times, there had been a little rubbish tip at the bottom of Toftebakken, used by the old mental asylum. Now the tatty mattresses and rusty bed frames were long gone and in their place was an oasis of showcase residences, all of which enjoyed an unspoiled vista of the fjord.
She loved to stand here above the windbreak of trees, gazing out over the marina at the blue fjord in all its splendor, gradually allowing her eyes to drift out of focus.
In such a place, and in such a state of mind, it was no wonder that a person should feel defenseless when confronted by the randomness of life. Perhaps that was why she had not declined when the young man got off his bike and suggested they go somewhere for coffee. He lived in the same neighborhood as she did, and on several occasions they had acknowledged each other with a nod in the Føtex supermarket. Now they were standing here.
She glanced at her watch. There were still a couple of hours before her son had to be picked up. Surely there was no harm in a cup of coffee?
On that point, however, she was terribly wrong.
That evening, she sat like an old woman, rocking in her chair, clutching her belly as if that might relax the tension in her muscles. What she had done was unfathomable. Was she really that desperate? It was as though this handsome young man had hypnotized her. After ten minutes, she had switched off her mobile and had begun to tell him all there was to know. And he had listened.
“Mia, that’s a nice name,” he had said.
It was so long since she had heard anyone speak her name that it sounded almost foreign. Her husband never used it.
This man had been so easy to be with. He had shown interest in her life and told her about his own when she asked. He was in the army, and his name was Kenneth. His eyes were kind and it hadn’t felt at all wrong when he had placed his hand on hers, even though the café was full of customers. And then he had drawn it toward him across the table and held it tightly.
And she had done nothing to stop him.
Afterward, she had dashed off to the day care, his presence lingering all around her.
Now, neither the darkness nor the hours that had passed since then could settle her breathing and make things normal again. She bit her lip. Her mobile lay accusingly on the coffee table in front of her, still switched off. She was stranded on an island and could see no escape. With no one to ask for advice. No one from whom to seek forgiveness.
Where could she go from here?
When morning came, she was still in her clothes, her thoughts still racing in bewilderment. The day before, while she had been with Kenneth, her husband had called her mobile. It had only just occurred to her. Three missed calls on the display would require explanation. He would call her and ask why she hadn’t answered, and the story she would be forced to concoct would surely give her aw
ay, no matter how plausible it might seem to her. He was older and wiser and more experienced than she was. He would sense her deception, and the thought made her entire body tremble.
Usually, he would call just before eight, before she cycled with Benjamin to his day care. Today, she would try to leave a few minutes early. She wanted to speak to him, but she mustn’t let him stress her out. If he did, things would go wrong.
The boy was already in her arms when the treacherous mobile began to rumble and spin on the table. Her little porthole to the outside world, always within reach.
“Hi, darling!” she said, trying to keep herself in check, her pulse pounding in her ears.
“I called you. Why didn’t you call back?”
“I was just about to,” she blurted. She knew it was a mistake as soon as the words left her mouth.
“You’re on your way out with Benjamin, how could you be about to call? I know you.”
She held her breath and put the boy down carefully on the floor. “He’s a bit off color today. You know when they’ve got a runny nose the day care says to keep them at home. I think he’s got a temperature.” Cautiously, she allowed herself to breathe. Her whole body was screaming for air.
“I see.”
The pause that followed worried her. Was he expecting her to say something? Was there something she had forgotten? She tried to focus. Stared out through the double glazing at the garden gate opposite. The bare branches. People on their way to work.
“I called more than once yesterday. Do you hear what I’m saying?” he asked.
“Yes, I’m sorry, darling. The phone just went dead on me. I think maybe it needs a new battery.”
“I only charged it on Tuesday.”
“Yes, I know you did. That’s what I mean. Only two days and it was flat. Strange, don’t you think?”
“So you charged it yourself, then? Could you work out how?”
A Conspiracy of Faith Page 5
